“I started smoking marijuana in my late teens. I drank to get drunk but ultimately didn’t like the effect. Not so with grass. Grass is smooth. It had the opposite effect from alcohol: it made me more tolerant and forgiving. …

“I smoked marijuana for 50 years. I don’t know where I’d be without it. It opened my mind to a lot of things, and now it’s active ingredient, THC, relaxes me and eases my arthritis pain. I’ve concluded that marijuana should be legal and alcohol should be illegal. But, good luck with that.”

The five are among those who were arrested hours before the District’s new drug law took effect midnight Thursday, making possession of one ounce or less of marijuana a civil penalty instead of a crime. They were in various predicaments, from allegedly smoking dope to perhaps selling it, and some went to jail for the night while others were in handcuffs a few hours and then released with criminal citations, neither of which might happen under the revisions.

Each case’s circumstances are unique, and it was difficult to discern from initial arrest reports whether any of the suspects would have been spared arrest had their encounter with police occurred Thursday instead of Wednesday. D.C. police are reviewing the reports, and spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said that some cases “may not meet the criteria for an arrest under the new law.”

And in case you missed it, a Portland man with land in Wasco County is ready to plant industrial hemp, but the Oregon Department of Agriculture rejected the proposal, saying the state's still writing rules for the industry.